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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27298882">Did  Everything Feel Beautiful When You Let Go Of The Idea of Being Anything At All?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolppstitsucker/pseuds/smolppstitsucker'>smolppstitsucker</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Believe me this will not be all sad, Depression, Heavy Angst, I promise it gets better, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lee Taeyong-centric, M/M, Mentioned NCT Ensemble, NCT need a hug, Nakamoto Yuta-centric, Please give me validation, Sad Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung, Sad with a Happy Ending, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, You're gonna miss Doyoung</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:00:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,679</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27298882</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolppstitsucker/pseuds/smolppstitsucker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They knew Kim Doyoung. And Kim Doyoung is dead.</p><p>But his boy, his boy isn't just Kim Doyoung. His boy is so much more and the people in this room–his friends, his bandmates, the people he shares a home with, the people who are Doyoung's friends, they didn't know the boy who's corpse they're seeing. They didn't fucking know him. Only Yuta did. Only Yuta did. </p><p>And Taeyong, he does not deserve to grieve like that for his boy. Taeyong does not fucking deserve to grieve like that. Only Yuta does. Only. Yuta. Does.</p><p>(or, the aftermath of a suicide in a band, with misplaced love, and finding out how you really don't know a person till they've stopped existing.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Nakamoto Yuta, Lee Taeyong/Nakamoto Yuta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. baby it's halloween, there's a last time for everything.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi, so this is my second fic. </p><p>There's going to be heavy angst, very heavy angst that is. I'm going to give you a warning, this whole fic deals with a lot of trauma, like a fuckton. So you have to be prepared for that. There will be no graphic descriptions of sex , so if that's a trigger for you, you'll be safe.</p><p>Anyway, this is based on my experiences and my self projection is through the roof. I hope you give a lot of love to this fic because one, i need validation, two, I don't function without validation.<br/>Sue me. Actually don't, I am poor.</p><p>Lastly this isn't a poly fic, so I'm sorry if you were looking for that hehe. Title from a flatsound song.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1y3kGiSU3YP9yQzO9ZyWxP?si=1C5seIc-SqO7rmmzEMXkYQ">chapter-wise playlist </a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>0.</p><p> </p><p>They don't find his body for three whole days, and when they do they wish they didn't. Mark pukes on the floor, as Johnny holds him to steady him, his own face contorted into almost a tissue-esque shape, Taeyong slides down the tiled wall, and sits on the floor, and stares at the metal table with unfocused eyes. And Yuta, he can't help but stare at the half eaten face, the bloated cheeks, the swollen greenish blue lips and he hates it so much that he can't help but look. He is colourless.Yuta wants to remove the white sheet covering his body chest down and see if he's watery pale all over. He wants to prove to all of them that he is alive, that the body in front of him might have a mangled head but his heart is beating, that he is alive, that his insides have blood rushing through―this glassy corpse is not real. He hates this so much. He hates this so fucking much that he wants to touch him and shake him awake and tell him that this is some stupid fucking halloween prank, the one that he had been going on and on about since March. He hates this and he wants the boy in front of him to wake up. He wants to rip off the clinical fabric and look for the blade wound on his belly and press his finger against it so that he grabs Yuta's hand and asks him to stop. He wants this body in front of him to hold him by the neck again and whisper into his shoulder, "Yuta hyungie, I am sad." He wants this–this corpse to not be a corpse anymore. He wants his–his–he just wants him back. He wants him to be alive. He knows the boy in front of him is fucking dead, and he wants the boy in front of him to be alive.</p><p>He wants to look away and he can't. The half eaten face glares back at him, challenging him to look away from the gnarly mess. The paleness of his skin seems like a Comedy Central special for roasting white privileged celebrities, but here it's him, the watery skin asking him to react, look away and all he does is stare. All he can do is stare. He can't fucking look away and he knows this picture will never leave his head. It will sew itself into everything else and remove all other memories of the boy and leave this–this dead mess in it's place and Yuta wants to choke the boy till he's coughing and asking him to stop, asking him what's wrong, asking him why he's angry, asking him why he's being violent out of nowhere and he wants to do take out his heart from his chest and place it in the other's mouth till he startles awake. He just wants him to wake up. He just wants him to wake up. And as his eyes well up with tears, he hopes that by the time he wipes the accumulating teardrops off he can hear the boy on the metal table to open his eyes and laugh at him for falling for a stupid prank like this one. And he hopes to hear the other's awkward laugh. And he hopes to see him alive and breathing and awake and now he's counting – 1 2 3 – he wants to hear him whine that Yuta is being unfair and siding with Taeyong again ―4 5 6―he wants to hear him whisper "Hyung, I haven't slept in a week" and laugh softly –7 8 9– he wants to hear him say "I missed you so bad I forgot to take my meds"–10–</p><p>But all he hears is Taeyong's loud, broken sob that bounces off the walls like a horrible family secret and he feels his legs turn to jelly and he sits down on the same floor with a thump and he looks at Taeyong staring back at him with eyes that look so red you'd think he was stoned as fuck, and he wants to punch Taeyong in the face because–because Yuta is the only one who should be allowed to grieve like that. There is something inside his chest that makes Yuta want to burn the whole place down and kick Taeyong in the belly and shout at Mark and fistfight Johnny because this pain – this pain is his. Not theirs. They don't know the boy on the metal bed.</p><p>They knew Kim Doyoung. And Kim Doyoung is dead.</p><p>But his boy, his boy isn't just Kim Doyoung. His boy is so much more and the people in this room–his friends, his bandmates, the people he shares a home with, the people who are Doyoung's friends, they didn't know the boy who's corpse they're seeing. They didn't fucking know him. Only Yuta did. Only Yuta did. </p><p>And he sees Taeyong crying with his face in his hands and he wants to shake him till he stops crying and yell into his face that he should be crying like that, that Yuta is the only one who deserves to cry like that because Doyoung was his boy. His. This grief is his. And they shouldn't be able to stake their claim on the boy they didn't even know. This pain is his. And he wants to ask them to stop. To stop crying. To stop having a meltdown over a person they only thought they knew.</p><p>But as the tears silently slide across his cheek, he doesn't do any of that, and watches Lee Taeyong belt out sobs from the inside of his gut on the floor across him. He wonders what Taeyong would do if he knew Doyoung like Yuta knew him. He wonders how much Taeyong knows him to be crying the way that would fit Yuta the best, after everything that's happened.</p><p>And then he feels two arms around him and he knows it's Mark, there's a stench of puke and the overpriced deodorant coming from his hoodie and Yuta can't help but loosen himself in the other's arms and soon Johnny's there too, hugging him, and Taeyong crawls across the floor to join them. And they're four grown men on the floor of an identification room, four grown men who know their pretences well enough to not cry like this, but death is a fucking sharp bladed knife that's convenient enough to make all your masks slip one by one, even if you're an idol and you've been trained to conceal, and not feel like Elsa was, but death will always be a pretty good icepick for your Frozen. </p><p>Kim Doyoung has knocked himself off the surface of the earth, and they're never going to be okay again. The aftermath of suicide is a shared private hell.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Now stay away from the highways, my eyes like them red lights.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, my satan spawns. I am back with another chapter. Hehe.</p><p>Title from Frank Ocean's Solo.</p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1y3kGiSU3YP9yQzO9ZyWxP?si=1C5seIc-SqO7rmmzEMXkYQ">chapter-wise playlist </a><br/> </p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>-1</p><p>Taeyong decides to check up on Doyoung when he hears him blasting Machine Gun Kelly so loud that Mark is bopping his head to it on the couch in the living room adjacent to Doyoung's room. </p><p>When he throws a questioning look at Mark, the latter shrugs, "It's going on for the past two hours but I can't say I am complaining, Hyung's got great taste barring when he is being a soft boy."</p><p>"Two hours?!"</p><p>"Uh-huh."</p><p>"You didn't go check on him once?"</p><p>"The last time he was blasting weird shit I walked into his room and saw him jumping on his bed."</p><p>"I bet you had joined him too, e-boy."</p><p>"Hyung, for the last time, I'm not an e-boy."</p><p>"Ok Nirvana stan."</p><p>"Hyung–"</p><p>Taeyong doesn't let Mark finish, and he walks to Doyoung's room and finds the door slightly open, and the music is too loud, and this is so unlike Doyoung, he rarely plays music as loud as this, and when he does, he locks the door. There's no shuffling noise coming from the room either, so he isn't dancing around. </p><p>Taeyong calls for Doyoung, and knocks on the door, and when there's no response, he decides to walk in. The lights are on, and he doesn't see Doyoung at first, until he looks down and sees him lying on the floor, eyes closed. He is dressed in a leather jacket and a tee and the tight pair of jeans he wears only when he's being an angstlord. Taeyong notices that he has done his eye makeup, another rare occurrence because Doyoung usually is the designated group soft boy, wearing the softest shades and avoiding makeup altogether, it's his aesthetic at this point, even the stylists insist on dressing him up like that. But today is one of those days when he has light blue eyeshadow rubbed at the edges of his eyes, and Taeyong is intrigued that he's applied eyeliner too, and if they weren't in this strange situation with Doyoung  on the floor blasting music that he doesn't really listen to otherwise dressed like he is at a party, Taeyong would have had struggled to not think of the unholy things that prompt him to write songs like Whiplash.</p><p>"Doyoung?", he calls out and immediately regrets it because Doyoung's eyes shoot open, and there's something in his eyes that Taeyong can't read, it flashes by in a second. </p><p>Taeyong observes that Doyoung's eyes are unfocused, they're not looking at him, and they're not looking at the ceiling either, although his head is faced towards it. Doyoung doesn't look stoned or on drugs, but he doesn't say anything either, so Taeyong gently prods, lowers his voice, and asks, "What are you doing on the floor?"</p><p>Machine Gun Kelly is yelling "I don't do fake love but I'll take some from you tonight," and Doyoung turns his head slowly at Taeyong and smirks a little and says, "Dying."</p><p>There's a small pain in Taeyong's chest, but he's used to this shit when it's Doyoung, it's regular shit, so he quirks an eyebrow and asks, "In party wear?"</p><p>"Can't a man die pretty?"</p><p>"You look the physical manifestation of the word fuckboy right now, no one's gonna call you pretty if you die like this. Also MGK is weird to die to."</p><p>"Why's MGK weird to die to?"</p><p>"I'm thinking of the tabloid articles after you die, "the last song he played was "bloody valentine"by an artist called Machine Gun Kelly", and then AllKpop will post something about how you were a gun enthusiast and had a vore kink. Sounds amazing, doesn't it?"</p><p>"I hate that you make sense."</p><p>"Why are you dressed like this?"</p><p>"Was gonna go somewhere with Yuta Hyung."</p><p>"And? Why are you here?"</p><p>"Sicheng texted about some rock concert shit. You know what happens to Yuta when Sicheng and rock music happen to be in the same sentence."</p><p>"He ditched you?"</p><p>"Heh. He didn't remember he was supposed to go out with me today."</p><p>"Well that's a dick move."</p><p>"It's fine, I'll go out alone tonight."</p><p>"Then why are you on the floor?"</p><p>"I am trying to make myself look like I'm having a catharsis right now. You know, the kind that teen girls have in those artsy movies that make it to the Oscars? that kind."</p><p>"How many panic attacks did you have today, edge lord?"</p><p>"Two, and you should stop with the names. You already pissed off Mark and Taeil."</p><p>"But you can never hate me."</p><p>"I mean, whatever helps you sleep at night."</p><p>"You and I both have insomnia."</p><p>"That's the point. Face the truth."</p><p>Taeyong knows it's a light hearted comment, the stuff Doyoung throws at him and Taeyong throws back at him all the time, but he can feel his heart sinking just a little bit. </p><p>Doyoung probably notices the silence, and he gets up from the floor and he walks over to his mirror and picks up some red lipstick and smudges it over his lips callously and turns to him and asks, "They've opened a new bar at Gangnam–what's it called again? Ah yes, Kokobop."</p><p>"Like the EXO song?"</p><p>"Apparently Chanyeol Hyung and Sehun Hyung are investors."</p><p>"Is it gay?"</p><p>"Do Kokobop, Sehun Hyung or Chanyeol Hyung sound straight to you?"</p><p>"Well, now that you say it–"</p><p>"I wouldn't have asked you to come if it was straight, idiot."</p><p>"Fine, I'll get ready. DON'T LEAVE WITHOUT ME."</p><p>...</p><p>In a few hours, they're at the bar, Doyoung nursing a drink in his hand and encouraging him to go dance and it's pretty ironic because the only person Taeyong wants to get his hands on is asking him to get his dick sucked by someone else , and the only person Taeyong wants to dance with has two left feet.</p><p>And yet, he walks to the dance floor under the neon lights and watches Doyoung sit slightly hunched and stare at his phone screen, and meets an idol from JYPE, the closeted to public out to other idols kind, his kind, to be more precise, and in a few seconds they're grinding against each other, sweaty bodies pressed together and it gets Taeyong horny and messy and he looks at Doyoung and Doyoung is staring back and there's that smirk on his face as he mouths "Get some", and there's a small pain in Taeyong's chest but he has learnt to ignore it.</p><p>The next morning, when the guy leaves his dorm after they make hollow promises of staying in touch, Taeyong stands in the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water and watches Doyoung leave Yuta's room 
and  stealthily go back and there's a line of hickeys trailing down his neck and Taeyong, he feels a small pain in his chest, Taeyong feels a small pain in his chest and he gulps the water down and hopes it washes it off.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Jesus Christ, I'm so blue all the time And that's just how I feel Always have and I always will I always have and always will</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello hello hello, new chapter !! </p><p>Title from Funeral by Phoebe Bridgers.</p><p>I will be back soon.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1y3kGiSU3YP9yQzO9ZyWxP?si=1C5seIc-SqO7rmmzEMXkYQ">chapter-wise playlist </a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> + 1 </p><p>The funeral is private. There's no media, no flashing cameras, no fans, and photography of any kind is strictly prohibited. Doyoung's parents are gone–his dad got into a car accident when he was six and his mom had cancer. Gongmyung and his wife are probably the only family at the funeral. There's the band of course, all 22 of them in black clothes, grieving, demure faces, there are a few of Doyoung's friends from other groups, a few seniors, people from the company. Yuta looks around and sees their faces. The kids are huddled up together and he can see that all of them have been crying, especially Jeno and Renjun, and Yuta remembers how Doyoung had almost adopted the two of them. He knows it's hurting them like a fucking bitch, seeing the same man who had bought them ice creams and listened to them rant and hugged them through their homesickness and yelled at them when they were being ridiculous, in a coffin of all places. </p><p>Hyuck's crying too, and Yuta knows that that kid would end up messed up now, because he remembers their fights and he remembers Hyuck with his head on Doyoung's lap as Doyoung listened to him talk about things that Yuta had no context for. </p><p>And he watches Hyuck shake as Mark hugs him tighter than he's ever held anyone, he watches Hyuck and wants to ask him if he regrets not being softer to Doyoung, kinder, more attentive. But the kid's shaking and Yuta is many things, but he isn't cruel, so he doesn't do that. </p><p>The coffin feels light as he carries it with Johnny, Taeyong and Xuxi. He had been surprised, of course, when Xuxi had insisted to be one of the pallbearers, all of them had been surprised, but Xuxi had not given them an explanation. He'd looked at Yuta and whispered, "Just let me do this, Hyung", and that had been that.</p><p>But he feels the lightness of the coffin as he carries it. Had Doyoung grown thinner before he–before he–killed himself? Doyoung had always been so keen on disappearing. He quoted songs about disappearing all the time. How to disappear completely by Radiohead, How to disappear by Lana Del Rey, he had a screenshot of an article which had bullet points detailing how to disappear in the 21st Century. He had a copy of The Vegetarian on his desk.</p><p>
  <i></i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Hyung I feel so tangible at times, you know. Like everyone can reach out and touch me. But I–I don't want that. I don't want to be so reachable. I just–just want to be invisible. I want to disappear, you know. Hide in plain sight, if that's not possible."</i>
</p><p>And he feels the lightness of the coffin and thinks to himself that Doyoung had finally done it. Hiding in plain sight. He is in the coffin and they will never open it again. Hiding in plain sight. He's going to go six feet under and the only proof remaining of his existence in the graveyard would be the stupid headstone listing his birth and death like it does for every person. </p><p>Yuta's functioning on autopilot now. He can hear Taeyong sniffle and he can hear the whispers as they're loading the coffin in the car. He sees Taemin hug Mark and whisper that the pain will go away, and he knows Taemin knows how it feels, he knows that, but all he can think about is how the pain will go away, and everything will be fine.</p><p>Everyone's looking for assurance. That things will be okay. He listens to it. Registers it. He sees Sehun and Chanyeol hug Taeyong and whisper shit that's meant to comfort him, and he wants to go up to one of them and ask, "Hyung, what if I don't want things to be normal again?" </p><p>Everyone's looking for assurance and all he wants to do is fish Doyoung out of that bloody casket and show everyone that he is alive. Doyoung can't die. Doyoung had always said he was too scared to die. That it was too painful for him to go through it. He wants to sit down and cry and scream.</p><p>And he feels Sicheng hug him, from the back. For the first time in forever, it's Sicheng initiating contact. He would have been happy if this weren't  a day where Doyoung was fucking dead. He wants to shove off Sicheng as he whispers that he understands and yell that he does not. As Sicheng tells him that it would be okay, that nothing lasts forever, he wants to yell and say that he doesn't want the pain to go away. Everything passes but he doesn't want this to fucking pass. He knows that in a year, the kids would start laughing, the 127s will be fine, the China line would be fucking fine. They would all fucking laugh and be happy and Yuta, he doesn't want that. Doyoung deserves more than some passing grief, the getting used to the absence, Doyoung deserves so much more. </p><p>So as Sicheng holds him and whispers into his hair, Yuta swears, he fucking swears he will mourn for Doyoung. Doyoung deserves more than a fucking one-day-goodbye. Doyoung had deserved so much more when he was alive. And Yuta, fucking failure of a person Yuta, who had failed to give him that, would give him that, at least in death.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Everything is never enough.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Double Update lol.</p><p> </p><p>also you must have noticed the extensive sehun chanyeol mentions. don't judge me.</p><p>read !!</p><p>title from this song called Would I</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1y3kGiSU3YP9yQzO9ZyWxP?si=1C5seIc-SqO7rmmzEMXkYQ">chapter-wise playlist </a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>–1</p><p>Doyoung walks into his room when he's on his 60th round of Among Us, and Taeyong isn't surprised. He often does that. Sometimes Doyoung comes around to lounge about and they talk about anxiety and depression and meds that do nothing but make them feel more dependent. Sometimes it's just random bullshit about people they both hate and sometimes it's just – usual, bestfriend stuff.</p><p>Today, however, Doyoung walks up to his desk and hands him a sheet of paper.</p><p>"What is this?", he asks, surprised because Doyoung almost looks like he's taking a massive shit, with his bunched up eyebrows, and puckered up lips, which, again Taeyong desperately wants to kiss but will never tell anyone because one, he doesn't have the balls for it, and two, because his life will closely resemble the movie 2012.</p><p>"You know, you could just open it and see. It's not like I have given you a scroll," Doyoung huffs, and Taeyong lets out a small snicker.</p><p>"I just want to be prepared for whatever it is that you're giving me. Could be a marriage certificate for all I know."</p><p>"It could also be a slave contract where I sell you off to a random white popstar like they do on Wattpad."</p><p>"Ah yes, my best friend sold me to Harry Styles. I love how your brain works, Doyoungie. "</p><p>"Don't talk like you didn't pop a boner after watching the Lights Up music video."</p><p>"Hey Doyoung, fuck you."</p><p>"I'll pass. Now, please, God, go through this once."</p><p>Taeyong doesn't understand why Doyoung's being so desperate, but he obliges, he always does when it comes to Doyoung but you didn't hear him say that. And as he skims through the words on the page, he realises it's a song, Doyoung's song. </p><p>Taeyong has seen Doyoung write before. It's not extensive. Doyoung writes when he wants to and not because he feels a creative compulsion to, which is, often a case with him and Mark. Doyoung doesn't submit or show anything he writes to the company, or the other members. Once he'd written a song and shown Taeyong and Taeyong had told him the flaws and he'd fixed it and that was that. They had never spoken about it later and Doyoung had not expressed any desire to do anything with it. </p><p>He reads the words on the page, written in bright red ink with no strike throughs or errors and it's a sad song, it's a really sad song, and he stares at the words as they jump at him from between the ruled lines–</p><p>
  <i><br/>
i got dizzy at centennial park<br/>
they had this long tin slide<br/>
you said if i gave it a little chance,<br/>
i could stay off the pills for the night.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>we visited the city once in a month,<br/>
and i always retched,<br/>
the buses smelled like petroleum,<br/>
they ran over dogs<br/>
i couldn't have saved.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>maybe I'm dying,<br/>
this is the last time,<br/>
i'm sliding downhill,<br/>
maybe I'm dying,<br/>
it's the last time,<br/>
i'm downing a pill.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>your mother is scared of escalators,<br/>
and I'm scared of the stairs,<br/>
I read somewhere a kid<br/>
rolled down the Golden steps<br/>
was going to school,<br/>
he ended up killing himself. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>maybe I'm dying,<br/>
this is the last time,<br/>
i'm sliding downhill,<br/>
maybe I'm dying,<br/>
it's the last time,<br/>
i'm downing a pill.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>maybe I'm dying,<br/>
this is the last time,<br/>
i'm pulling the dogs<br/>
off the streets,<br/>
maybe I'm dying,<br/>
this is the last time<br/>
i'm climbing the bridge.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>maybe i'm dying,<br/>
but i'm probably<br/>
dreaming<br/>
maybe i'm dying,<br/>
but i'll probably wake up<br/>
in a minute<br/>
maybe i'm dying,<br/>
but it's probably<br/>
nothing.</i>
</p><p>
  <i></i>
</p><p>The paper feels heavy in his hands as he reads and rereads the words. The song is so terribly sad and he wants to ask Doyoung about him, if shit has finally hit the fan, if he feels so lonely that he–</p><p>"So, what do you think?", Doyoung's voice breaks his train of thought. </p><p>Taeyong looks back at him and gulps down the wateriness in his throat and replies, "It's a good song. A great one."</p><p>"No it's not."</p><p>"No it's not, but it's you."</p><p>"You mean to say that I'm not good?"</p><p>Taeyong's heart is almost about to drop but he sees the smile peering at the corner of Doyoung's mouth. Doyoung always says that jokes hurt the worst, because people mean them. Doyoung and all his contrarian bullshit.</p><p>"You know that's not what I meant. It's slightly choppy, a little rough. But that's you, changing anything would take that whole vibe going on with you."</p><p>Doyoung grins and Taeyong can't tell if he is happy. It feels nice, though, seeing him smile. Doyoung smiling without looking bored and desperate to get out of the conversation is as rare as Mark not having a meltdown while he is explaining any NCT song.</p><p>"Can you get me in touch with that producer FWB of yours? Royal Dive?"</p><p>"What–?okay, first off, he is not my FWB, we just fuck occasionally, and secondly, you wanna make this into a track?" </p><p>"He's your friend right?"</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"And he's a friend you fuck occasionally. That makes him your FWB. Quit bluffing. Anyway, yeah, I want to make this into an actual song."</p><p>"Fine, I'll get you in touch with him, don't be pissy. But you know right, that SM won't let you put this out anywhere under your name?"</p><p>"I know SM hates angstlords, the last time they encouraged one we had one whole album by Chanyeol hyung where he waxed poetic about how Sehun hyung had stars in his eyes and how he wouldn't love him back and he wanted to DIE because of the pain."</p><p>"Hey, Chanyeol Hyung is nice. He was just being sad and gay."</p><p>"I never said he wasn't. But anyway, I was thinking of uploading it anonymously on SoundCloud and shit."</p><p>"That's...not a bad idea. Yeah, I'll hook you up with him."</p><p>"You'll – hook me up with your FWB?". Taeyong tries resisting his extreme urge to not roll his eyes and ends up failing.</p><p>"Fuck off, please."</p><p>"Yeah, yeah," and his eyes are glimmering. Taeyong is annoyed, Taeyong doesn't want Doyoung to actually leave.</p><p>Doyoung leaves the song on Taeyong's desk, and as soon as he closes the door, the latter picks up the sheet of paper, and reads and rereads every line. </p><p>He traces every word till he can feel Doyoung's bitterness permeate through his fingers. He remembers the day Doyoung had felt dizzy at Centennial Park. They'd gone for a CF shoot, and Doyoung had vomited midshoot, and spent the whole time apologising to everyone. Then he'd insisted on cleaning up the set himself, but protests from everyone who was involved had managed to dissuade him. Taeyong had rushed to Doyoung and to ask him what was going on, but Doyoung had only managed to get the word "dizzy" out of his mouth when Yuta had wrapped Doyoung in his arms and given him water and asked him if he'd taken his meds.</p><p>Taeyong falls back on his chair, and thinks about Yuta and Doyoung. He wonders if Yuta is in love with Doyoung. It would be terrible if he isn't, because Doyoung obviously is. Yuta is the centre of Doyoung's screwed up universe, the only person he'd not die for. Everything in Doyoung's life is somehow tied to Yuta.</p><p>And yet, he's the only one who knows about them. Them hooking up, them being something that's way more than being two homies in a boy group. He finds it funny how his best friend getting dicked down by one of his friends in the same band breaks his heart.</p><p>He wishes it was him, like every childish second lead in every sitcom, movie, the usual shit. He would have loved Doyoung the way he deserved to be loved. He wouldn't just give whatever Yuta gives to Doyoung behind closed doors. Doyoung wouldn't fucking be his dirty little secret, he'd keep him safe.</p><p>And it's then that he remembers, Yuta's mother being afraid of escalators, and he feels his mouth turning as stale and rotten as a dead rat, and it's fucking clear that this too, this song too, is about Yuta.</p><p>Everything, every fucking thing that Doyoung owns is Yuta's. Always. Everything is always about Yuta. He thinks of how Doyoung feels empty and alone and almost like he's  dying , and yet, he makes it about Yuta.</p><p>
 Taeyong drinks a glass of water and clutches the paper in his fist and he wants to roll it into a ball and throw it into the oven and he wants to go to Doyoung's room and yell at him for loving Yuta so much that he doesn't even pay attention to the fact that he's dying. Everything is always for Nakamoto Yuta.
</p><p>
 Everything is always fucking for Yuta, and Taeyong knows he sounds awful, selfish, jealous, be he can't help but want a little bit of that.
</p><p>
 But everything is always about Yuta, so Taeyong copies the lyrics into his computer, and sends out the emails to the the producer, and works till his vision is cartwheeling its way out of his eyes.
</p><p>
  And when he falls asleep, on his chair, he doesn't really care for many things. Everything is always about Nakamoto Yuta anyway.
</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. So I wished hard on a Chinese Satellite, you know I hate to be alone.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So huge fucking word vomit, I hope y'all like this. </p><p>Title from Phoebe Bridgers' Chinese Satellite, I like how the song ties to this chapter, also the song name, you'll get why. I recommend you listen to it while reading this chapter.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1y3kGiSU3YP9yQzO9ZyWxP?si=1C5seIc-SqO7rmmzEMXkYQ">chapter-wise playlist </a></p><p> </p><p> </p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+1</p><p>The days that follow the funeral are knives down his throat. There are questions, so many questions. Interrogations by the police, the journalists, old friends and boyfriends hitting him up, asking about Doyoung.<i> Hey, I heard your bandmate died. Hey, aren't you in the group with the dead member? Hey, Yuta, I'm so sorry that happened to your group. Hey, what have you all thought about your career after this? Will you disband? Hey Yuta wasn't Doyoung close to you, did you see it coming? Mr Nakamoto had you seen this coming? Had Mr Kim given any indication that he'd be taking a step like this in the past? Was there any personal distress you were aware of that pushed him to this?</i></p><p>And Yuta wants to yell at them, he wants to tell them that he doesn't know. He wants to rip their heads off their neck and shout down the wound that he doesn't know. He doesn't know the answers. Who the fuck sees death coming? Who foreshadows death? When do you see a person and think, oh, they're gonna die? When do you look at the person whose neck you kiss every night and think, oh, he's not gonna make it? When do you look at the person who ties your hair into tiny braids and think, oh, he must be dying? When do you look at someone who's living, alive, breathing, a human who hugs you at night because he had fucking nightmares and he just wants you to kiss your hair and think, oh, he's going to jump off the same bridge you've both driven over for tours, concerts–everything? How do you touch someone and think you're going to see them being lowered into the ground, going six feet under once and for all? How do you see deaths coming? How do you foresee someone's end of existence? </p><p>He wants to shout till all of them are begging for mercy, till all of them stop, till all of them leave Doyoung's name untouched. But he can't and he doesn't, so he fills the space around himself with silence. He lets Doyoung's voice ghost it's way through the crevices in his skin and he quietens himself down till all he can hear is Doyoung saying "Hyung, I don't know what I'll do if you ever go away", till he is smiling bitterly to himself, thinking "You're the one who left, and now I don't know either", till he is asleep on the bathroom floor, the water from the showerhead washing him till it runs out and he is cold enough to feel like he's drowning too.</p><p>****</p><p>Sicheng comes to his room one afternoon. Yuta's lying on his bed staring at the ceiling all over again. His room is dark, he's kept the blinds drawn and he's blasting the air conditioner, although it's halfway through autumn. He's got the blanket drawn upto his chin and this would have been cute if his chest didn't feel as empty.</p><p>Sicheng climbs into his bed and lies down beside him and pulls the blanket over himself. Yuta wants to ask him why he is here, does he have more questions, he wants to ask Sicheng to leave him alone for a few days, that's the only thing he wants now, he wants to tell Sicheng to get the fuck out of his room but he is too tired to put up a fight, and he's too sad to yell and it's Sicheng, of all people. So he keeps quiet like he does these days, and lets Sicheng get whatever he's come to do over with and leave him to himself.</p><p>Sicheng turns his face to his, and studies it and Yuta can see the former's eyes on him through his peripheral vision and he schools his face to remain expressionless. He wants Sicheng to feel so unwelcome that he wants to leave by himself. </p><p>There's a beat of silence, and then Sicheng speaks.</p><p>"So...."</p><p>Yuta lets out a sigh. Sicheng can take it as acknowledgement or annoyance, Yuta just wants him to be done with it and leave.</p><p>"You have locked yourself in your room and you're not talking to us."</p><p>Yuta resists the urge to roll his eyes. Of course it's about that.</p><p>"We're all grieving. We're all devastated. Doyoungie hyung <i> died </i>," Yuta feels himself flinch and Sicheng continues, "But you've not talked to us in weeks since he's been gone. The only time you're talking is when the media's throwing questions at you. Yuta hyung, it feels like we have two dead people here. It feels like you're a goddamned ghost."</p><p>Yuta feels annoyed. He wants to ask Sicheng to stop talking and leave him alone but he doesn't, and he knows confrontation isn't one of the few things he wants now, so he keeps quiet.</p><p>"And I know, Yuta hyung, I know that you had a thing with Doyoungie Hyung, I know that. But the others don't. They're grieving too, and now they're worried for you too. We're all grasping for whatever straws we can see to keep ourselves afloat but you're making this difficult for everyone. You can grieve Yuta hyung, we all are, but at least speak to us."</p><p>Yuta can feel the anger inside him, rising slowly, like bile, and he tries his best to calm himself down. Think about Doyoung. Think about his voice. Under the blanket, Sicheng grabs his hand. Yuta would have been surprised if things weren't like this, but he isn't, he doesn't have the energy to be anything but sad.</p><p>"You don't speak a word, Yuta Hyungie. You stay holed up in your room all the time and Taeyongie hyung is tired too. He answers all the questions. He is taking care of all of us, and I don't want to make you feel bad, but he lost his best friend too, and he is doing his best to actually delude us into thinking it's going to be okay, but you–you don't even talk to us. It seems like you're a ticking time bomb, and it shouldn't be like this. We are supposed to lean onto each other now. And I hate to speak like this but you need to be practical. Taeyongie Hyung is doing his best but–"</p><p>"Well I am sorry I am not as perfect as your Taeyongie Hyung," and Yuta is seething. He feels like there's a rock in his chest and he thinks back to the day he'd seen Taeyong crying on the floor in the identification room, and he sees red. He remembers the anger he'd felt. "I'm so fucking sorry that I'm not being responsible enough for you all to lean on me."</p><p>Yuta's sitting up now and looking at Sicheng now, and the latter's eyes have widened. Sicheng sits up too. He's still holding his hand.  Yuta feels his voice getting groggy. It's been a while since he spoke so much.</p><p>"I am so fucking sorry that I am not being the person you want me to now, but hey newsflash, everyone deals with things differently. Especially when the guy who slept beside you kills himself. I am so fucking sorry that I am not talking much and being a fucking burden–"</p><p>"You're not being a burden–"</p><p>Sicheng's grip on his hand tightens and he wants to pull it out and clutch his hair but he can't, so he resorts to speaking.</p><p>"You expect me to be like Taeyong, don't you? You expect me to talk to you and comfort you and put you all first but I'm sorry I can't. I am so fucking sorry that I can't deal with things the healthy way. I am so sorry that I can't answer all the questions raining on me every fucking second. I am so sorry that I don't talk to you all. I am so sorry you feel like–what was it you said–I am a ghost. Well, I am sorry. I should stop haunting you all. You know what, maybe I should – maybe I should die too. I should kill myself too. What's losing two members when one is already gone–"</p><p>He doesn't get to finish as Sicheng presses his hand on Yuta's mouth, muffling his voice.</p><p>"Don't–don't ever say that. Don't you dare say that. Don't you ever fucking say that." </p><p>Sicheng is fuming. Yuta has never seen him like this. </p><p>"Don't you ever fucking say that Yuta. Ever. If you say that again I'll fucking slap you. Stop being so fucking selfish. You think we don't feel horrible that Doyoung hyung is gone? You think we don't fucking feel anything. You think Jeno hasn't cried himself to sleep every single night? You think Hyuck hasn't skipped countless meals? You think Johnny Hyung hasn't been going to the graveyard every single day and coming back at ass o' clock in the night? You think I haven't been hurting? And you say that you're going to–you're going to–don't you feel anything for us?"</p><p>Yuta pushes off Sicheng's hand from his mouth. </p><p>"Stop trying to guilt trip me–"</p><p>Sicheng is holding his hand so tight that it feels like he will tear it off. There's a stray tear on his cheek. </p><p>"Don't you understand? I am not fucking trying to guilt trip you. I am telling you to come to us. We are mourning too. You aren't the only one who lost him. I am telling you to lean on us. On me. You're alienating yourself. It's the same grief, Yuta. Maybe the intensities differ. But it's the same person, Yuta."</p><p>"No–no you don't understand. You don't. You didn't hold him through his panic attacks, I did. You didn't kiss him. He didn't give you so much of himself. It was me. We – he – you don't fucking understand–" and Yuta is crying, and his vision is blurry and Sicheng leaves Yuta's hand and puts both his hands on Yuta's cheeks–he holds Yuta's face in his palms and Yuta is crying so bitterly and his heart is chipping and he wants to see Doyoung's face once more– his insides are squeezing themselves into this one knotty mess and it hurts so much, it hurts like a fucking bitch.</p><p>Sicheng brings his face closer to his own and Yuta stares back although his vision is so fucking blurry he can't even make out his face. </p><p>Sicheng wipes his tears and he doesn't find any energy in himself to resist it and he feels so empty so he lets him do it. </p><p>And then Sicheng is kissing him and Yuta blacks out for a moment before he pushes the other back and he is shell shocked and he spits, "What the fuck, Sicheng?"</p><p>"You're hurt, Yuta."</p><p>"And your solution to that is kissing me. Without my consent?"</p><p>"I am sorry, Yuta. But I just want to ease the pain."</p><p>"You're straight, Sicheng. And besides, this idea is fucking idiotic."</p><p>"Yuta–just let yourself have this. I just want you to not feel like you don't matter. I know–I know it's probably not the best idea but I know – I have known you long enough that anyone kissing you, holding you, f–fucking you makes you feel tangible. Makes you–makes you less sad," and Sicheng is crying too, slightly, and Yuta feels softer, a little. It's Sicheng, of all people.</p><p>"You're straight, Winwinnie, and I appreciate you, but you'll hurt yourself too by getting into this mess."</p><p>"You wanted me before Doyoung Hyung, didn't you?"</p><p>And Yuta looks away, he doesn't want to think about all those days, he doesn't want to think about it, he doesn't want to, and Sicheng holds his face and whispers, "I am just trying to take care of you, Hyung, just one time, let yourself have that. You and I–we both know that I am into girls and you've moved on and just–this once, think I am Doyoungie Hyung and do it, you're not–you're not a ghost Hyung–you're real, Hyung. You are real. Please–Please don't die."</p><p>And Yuta lets him. He closes his eyes and imagines it's Doyoung. He imagines it's Doyoung and for a moment, for a flickering moment, he is happy.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. I've gone mad, and you're just gone, who will take me home?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi, I'm back with another chapter. This one's pretty long, and as always, the self projection is through the roof. It took a lot of time to write this, because I was going through something. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this and please leave comments, I'm hungry for validation and they keep me going.</p><p>Title from the song called 9:37 pm by Blegh.</p><p>
  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1y3kGiSU3YP9yQzO9ZyWxP?si=1C5seIc-SqO7rmmzEMXkYQ">chapter-wise playlist </a>
</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>0.</p><p>His relationship with Yuta hadn't been so bitter since the beginning. Taeyong remembers how they'd been close when they'd debuted, two lanky, scrawny teenagers clinging on to this one distant possibility of making it big. Yuta had been quieter, back then, and every single time you inched closer to him, you could feel a palpalable tension, a throbbing nervousness, almost. Being a Japanese kid in South Korea does that you. There's the bitter, itching homesickness clawing at your insides little by little, parasitical in existence. And then there's the weird agglomeration of fear, sadness and anger because of the pointed stares and the thinly veiled distaste for Japanese kids competing in an industry meant for Korean kids. Yuta had been quiet about it, feigning normalcy while desperately trying to not stand out. Taeyong hadn't known it, but he had understood it. He's always been an empathetic little bitch, as Doyoung had found it important to remind him every single time he'd cried over someone else's shitstorm.</p><p>And they'd been close. Laughing through smelling like dead mice post practice and holding each other when the water was so over their head that it didn't even feel like they were drowning anymore. When it felt like they'd hit rock bottom, but every single time, they were digging deeper. They'd been close enough for Yuta to not freak out when Taeyong had found a jizzed-over edition  of Men's Health in their shared closet (the irony), the time they'd been roommates. </p><p>Yuta had looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes and asked, "You're cool with it right?"</p><p>"We listen to Girls Generation together, Yuta," he'd deadpanned, and Yuta had barked out a laugh in response. Then he'd spent the next hour yelling at Yuta for leaving a jizzy magazine in the fucking closet. </p><p>And that was it, their coming out to each other. It wasn't one glorious epic moment of expressing vehement homosexual fraternity, but the conversations had taken a turn for more explicit shit, like Taeyong had found out that Yuta desperately wanted to have sex in the practice rooms with one of the older trainees, and Yuta had found out that Taeyong was one of the kinkiest 18 year olds and he'd die to get fucked in the ass by Chanyeol from EXO. Taeyong and Yuta, Yuta and Taeyong, thick as thieves. It was going good. It was going great.</p><p>And then somewhere along the way, Doyoung had joined the two of them, and then Yuta had guffawed and said that they were The Three Horsemen of the Homosexual Apocalypse, and they'd all laughed over it, huddled together in one small pile of bones and dreams. </p><p>Taeyong had often wondered what had brought them together. Yuta had been ghost-like, always. Always trying his best to blend in, not standing out too much. He liked drawing attention, of course, he wouldn't be a fucking idol then, but he did this thing which Taeyong didn't understand. He made himself look like he was not too attached to shit. Doyoung used to say that Yuta wore running shoes on one of his feet. Yuta wouldn't say anything to that, he'd just give a sheepish smile and Doyoung would smile back. Gums and teeth.<br/>
Yuta had his jibes, of course, but he'd never say anything that would cut open your skin and poke at your insides. At least not to people who weren't Doyoung and Taeyong, and even with them, it was drawn, half of it habit, the other half a defence mechanism. Yuta talked about books and rock music. And Yuta was the one who taught them how to line their eyes. He was the one who urged Taeyong to pierce his ears after his own fifth piercing. Yuta, ghost-like, a stranger in the alps. Yuta, present enough for Doyoung and Taeyong to be unable to imagine a future without him. </p><p>Doyoung, on the other hand, was everything Yuta was not. Ambitious, willing to stand out, dreaming. Wanting so bad to change life. Doyoung who didn't dress to stand out but raised his hand when someone asked who was the smart one in the group. Doyoung who took every little failure to heart and worked through it. Doyoung, with his horrible sleep schedule and weekly therapy sessions. Doyoung who wanted to kill himself after his mom died. Doyoung who looked at Yuta like he hung the moon, Doyoung who spoke to Yuta like he was protecting the latter from the world. Doyoung who spoke to Taeyong sharply enough to show him what was under his skin. Doyoung who looked like he had his shit together, Doyoung who was so quiet about things that involved him that the only ones who knew about his depression were Yuta and Taeyong. Doyoung who was so many persons in one – "It's the multiple personality disorder, Yong". Doyoung who Taeyong was in love with, every bit of him.</p><p>And then there was Taeyong himself. He knew he was nothing like the other two. Or maybe he was, but he didn't know. He'd always been the class weirdo. The outcast. The one no one paid much attention to. And then boom, he was streetcasted and people said he'd have a bright, bright, future. The kind where people would hate him and love him and want to be him. He'd gone from being the lanky bony teen on the last bench to being someone an entire agency banked on for carrying the baton their other groups had, for years. Lee Taeyong, leader of NCT. Lee Taeyong, expected to make his own group match up to the examples set by TVXQ, Super Junior, Shinee, EXO and SNSD. Legacy upon legacy, put on a plate and shoved down his throat. Taeyong wonders if his sense of responsibility had been there when he was a kid or was it the fruit of the dizzying weight of expectations. He has realised that he doesn't remember. He doesn't remember a lot of things, and he remembers some of the most inconsequential things. He used to have too many meltdowns, back then, and Doyoung used to walk him through it, with surprising expertise. "I'm used to it, Yong", he'd say, and Taeyong wouldn't know the right response. </p><p>And this was them. Three boys standing on tiptoes on a paper mache boat. Taeyong had once asked, "What do you think brought us together?" and Doyoung had said, "It's The Gay, Taeyong," and Yuta had nodded in agreement, a small smile on his face. He'd been right, though. Being gay does that to you, there's this alienation from the crowd around you, the one you don't create and neither do the people around you, but there always is the alienation. The feeling of being stranded. There's this strange loneliness in singing love songs knowing you'd never mean a single line because that's not what you'd want to say, that's not the person who you're singing to. It's strange–sitting with your dormmates, people you'd spend half your life with and hearing them talk about past girlfriends and crushes on women and not relating to it, not the least bit. It's weird, thinking that they're the ones who would have a normal heartbreak, the ones who would have a normal life, the ones who can get married in the public eye when their career has waned down a little. It's weird being cocksuckers in a country that has teenagers with picket signs protesting LGBTQ rights at a pride march. Yuta hadn't come out to his family and neither had Taeyong, and they didn't know if Doyoung had told his family. And sure, their groupies don't make them feel unsafe but there's this underlying feeling of not being the stereotype. And it's a little scary, thinking that the fans would cheer them on onstage if they're flirting with each other, but the fact that they would genuinely, truly want to be together with another man would invite a reaction a bit too cold to keep them happy. Birds of a feather flock together–and they'd formed this tiny triad of comfort. </p><p>But then Yuta had fallen for Sicheng. Sicheng was soft, awkward, shy in some ways and brash, funny and in many others. His low voice suited him in an oddly perfect way, and Doyoung and Taeyong had watched Yuta get more and more enamored with the boy. Yuta gushed about Sicheng, a little, and then a lot. Taeyong would watch him, amused, and Doyoung would have an unreadable expression on his face, but he'd often give Yuta advice on how to impress Sicheng. Doyoung was the only one who'd had a boyfriend in highschool, which wasn't much but it certainly was more experience than Taeyong's one sole blowjob to the only other gay dude at school, and Yuta's crushes on 2D men from hentai. </p><p>Taeyong had seen through Doyoung, though. Or Doyoung had let him see through him. Doyoung liked Sicheng, he shared that maternal attitude with Taeyong, where he got all naggy and caring. Sicheng looked like a lost duckling with his limited Chinese and awkwardness, and it was impossible to not squish his cheeks and dote on him. Doyoung cooked for Sicheng, and took care of him. But he'd also clench his fist when he saw Yuta hug Sicheng and ask the latter to say that he loved him. A click of the tongue. A sigh. Doyoung probably slipped. Or maybe he did it so that Taeyong could hear. And one day, through one of his shittily timed panic attacks, Doyoung had asked for Yuta, and when Taeyong had tried to hold the former, Doyoung, gasping, breathing, almost choking, had looked at him with glassy eyes and Taeyong had known. Taeyong had known that he'd never be able to mean as much to Doyoung as Yuta did. And it had hurt like a fucking bitch. </p><p>But what had hurt worse had come a few weeks later. Taeyong and Yuta had visited one of the hole in the wall shabby gay bars a few streets away from their dorms. It had cheap liquor and sitting inside made you feel like you were in 1950s<br/>
England. Good old homophobic English times. Doyoung hadn't been around then. He was somewhere, Taeyong doesn't remember. Yuta and Taeyong had nestled themselves in a tiny corner of the bar, and they'd let themselves get a little tipsy.</p><p>Somewhere along the line, the conversation had turned to Sicheng. Yuta had that far off look on his face again when Taeyong asked him about "your precious Winwinnie" and he had said with a small sigh, "I asked him out."</p><p>"WHAT? And you didn't tell us?"</p><p>Yuta's eyes had turned a little glassy under the dim yellow lights of the bar, and he'd whispered, a little slow, "He's straight, Yong."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"I really don't know, I really really don't. He likes the same things I do, and he'd talk about men like he was interested in them, and I thought – god my gaydar sucks, doesn't it?", and Taeyong had seen Yuta with a small sour smirk on his face, the kind that looked like he was smirking to not show that the inside of his mouth was bleeding.</p><p>"I am pretty sure I was pretty close to falling for him. If I have already not fallen. And it doesn't feel too good, Yongie," he'd said, letting out a forced chuckle like badly written pained characters in white people movies do.</p><p>Taeyong had looked at Yuta, with the yellow lights on his face making him look like he did when they'd first met. The faraway look where Taeyong could never figure out what was going on his head. So in his desperate attempt to cut through the silence, he'd said, "If it makes you feel better, I'm in the same boat as you are."</p><p>That had caught Yuta's attention, and he'd asked, wide eyes , "You fell in love with a hetboy too?!"</p><p>And Taeyong had snickered, "He's not a hetboy, but he's not gonna love me back."</p><p>And that had sombred Yuta, and he'd looked at Taeyong in slight alarm and asked, "Is it someone I know?"</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>And Yuta had hugged Taeyong, loosely, and Taeyong had bit back a chuckle. Nakamoto Yuta, always ghost-like. One summer short of leaving. </p><p>"Who is it?"</p><p>And Taeyong does not remember what he'd felt back then, but he had blurted out, without hesitation, "Doyoung."</p><p>"Our Doyoung?" , Yuta had balked, and Taeyong had found himself chuckling, despite his mouth tasting like he'd chewed on burnt cigarettes, despite the knowledge that the only reason Doyoung wouldn't love him back was because of Yuta. Or maybe there had been other reasons too. Whatever. Hypotheticals.</p><p>"How many Doyoungs do you know?"</p><p>"Oh."</p><p>"Yup."</p><p>"He's in love with someone else?"</p><p>Taeyong had looked away. He'd wanted to know what it felt like to be in Yuta's position–having Doyoung loving him, having Doyoung being in love with him and being absolutely oblivious about it. He'd wanted to press Yuta's head on the wall and yell at him for being so fucking oblivious, but he had not done any of that. He had let Yuta pay for the drinks and take him back to the dorms and tuck him in and whisper "we're going to be okay" against his forehead. </p><p>And Taeyong had believed that promise, he had clung to the promise, because it was this assurance of a shared boat journey on this grimy river of the heartbreak that ensues when you fall in love with your groupmates, when you fall in love with people who you have got to stick to till the end of your youth. Taeyong had believed it, stick and poke tattooed it to his head, had held on to it, till he'd walked in on Doyoung and Yuta making out on Yuta's bed, Doyoung in his purple sweater and Yuta in his leather jacket–almost one of the Pinterest couple aesthetics, the ones he secretly liked to save to his board, imagining his best friend, and himself. And he'd seen them with their tongues down each other's throat, Doyoung's hands in Yuta's hair, both of their slight moans echoing in the room. He'd watched, entranced by his two best friends almost devouring each other, and in the back of his head, he'd wondered if this was his heartbreak, if this was it, if this was the heartbreak he'd read about in books and watched happen in movies, if this was the breaking point. And as Yuta had let out a whine, he'd heard the word "yes" repeated in his head like the Samsung default ringtone on Mark's phone. </p><p>
  <i><br/>
Yes, this is your heartbreak.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Yes, this is where you needed to run away and lock yourself in your room and slide down against the wall.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Yes, this is where you start crying and realise that things will never be the same ever again.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Yes yes yes.</i>
</p><p>And he would have done all of that, if Yuta hadn't seen him. As Yuta had stared at Taeyong, lips pressed to Doyoung's, Taeyong had mouthed the word "congratulations" and walked away. Yuta hadn't followed him, and he'd spent the next few hours with Johnny, pretending like he didn't feel his chest was getting jumped on with six inch sharp heels. There had never been any explanations, or conversations, or anything of that sort, and Yuta and Taeyong, thick as thieves, part of the homosexual alliance, had never been the same again.</p><p>And today, as Taeyong sees Yuta sitting cross-legged on Doyoung's bed, staring into space, lips swollen from kissing Sicheng, all he feels is red, pulsating rage that he hadn't felt even when he'd walked in on Yuta and Doyoung kissing. He has great fucking timing, walking in on people kissing when he would have stayed way more sane if he hadn't done that. Walking in on motherfucking Yuta kissing people.</p><p>So he walks into the room, and he knows that he'd not have done this if he'd only seen Sicheng and Yuta kiss, he'd have cursed at Doyoung in his mind over and over for being so foolish to think Yuta would not use him as a replacement for Sicheng. He would have cried and smashed Doyoung's tiny  framed photograph on his desk and yelled at the ceiling that he could have loved him better. That he could have at least not treated him like a fucking body pillow till someone else showed up. That he was not a casual bump on the road. He would have–</p><p>But now as he sees Yuta bunched up on Doyoung's bed, acting like he's hurt by Doyoung's death, he feels all his blood vessels popping.</p><p>So he walks over to Yuta, who looks up and Taeyong holds his chin harshly and Yuta dares to look confused, dares to pretend like he hasn't done anything wrong, dares to look at Taeyong with something akin to a question in his eyes and he feels so fucking angry, he feels so motherfucking angry, he feels all the anger he's mistaken for sadness in the past. </p><p>And Lee Taeyong, empathetic little bitch, self proclaimed mom of the group, SM Entertainment's archery board for antis, slaps Nakamoto fucking Yuta.
</p><p>Oh, the things we do when we're hurt.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Georgia, Georgia, I love your son, When he gets older, he might be the one.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi, long time no see. Here's a chapter that's soft. I was thinking y'all deserved this. The song Smoke Signals is an essential part of this chapter, and I'm begging you to listen to it. </p><p>Huge thanks to user puppyeolie for keeping me sane.</p><p>See you soon, enjoy.</p><p>Title from Georgia by Phoebe Bridgers.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1y3kGiSU3YP9yQzO9ZyWxP?si=1C5seIc-SqO7rmmzEMXkYQ">chapter-wise playlist </a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yuta tells Doyoung about the Sicheng thing when the latter is setting up the new Phoebe Bridgers vinyl in his precious record player. Yuta is perched on Doyoung's bed, hands bunched up together, and they're having one of those sessions together. The ones where Doyoung buys a new vinyl of an album he really really adores, because he doesn't believe in wasting money on vinyls of albums that have even one sub-par song, and he invites Yuta and they listen to each song and dissect it like it's the frog they'd never had to dissect at school because they're performing arts kids. Yuta doesn't really know why Doyoung doesn't invite Taeyong, but he likes it this way, for some reason. He feels important, in a way. Not like a filler for some other person, a cheap substitute, the second best. And he should be scared of it, low-key, because this is a potential threat of the very permanence he's tried to run from, but he isn't, and he doesn't overthink it to save himself the headache.</p><p>So when he whispers, "Sicheng is straight", into the silence of the room which Doyoung is about to fill with Stranger in the Alps, he doesn't know what to expect. In the back of his head, he is hoping Doyoung doesn't have shit going through his life too, because he isn't ready to console one more person. He knows that his friends deserve comfort too, but he wants–he needs a little bit of consoling for himself. He had comforted Taeyong and tucked the latter into his bed after he'd told him, but he had wanted to be comforted that night, but he doesn't want to do it this time, he wants to be on the receiving end. Call him selfish, self absorbed, but it fucking sucks when you're sad and you want attention, but you have to comfort people instead. And as Doyoung sets the pin aside and turns to Yuta, he's hoping, praying, that Doyoung gives him some comfort.</p><p>"Did he tell you that?", Doyoung asks, and Yuta can see Doyoung's eyes look clouded with what he would like to think is worry.</p><p>"Yeah. A few days ago. I-I asked him out. And he–he said that, and man, I am pathetic aren't I? I pined for a straight boy, like I'm pretty sure that's against the homosexual code of conduct–" </p><p>"You're not pathetic, hyung," and Yuta notices that in the middle of his rant about him flouting the code of conduct of homosexuals, Doyoung has moved across the room and is currently sitting at his feet, on the floor. It slightly reminds him of romantic movie scenarios where the second lead comforts the crying heroine, and he shakes off the thought, because this isn't some heterosexual drama with cliche plot points where the heroine goes back to the asshole first lead, he's a strong, flaming homosexual, although he feels like shit right now, and Doyoung isn't a second lead, Doyoung is more important than that.</p><p>"You will never be pathetic," and Doyoung says it with so much conviction, that Yuta stares at him, and he notices how Doyoung is sitting with his knees together, his hands around them, in his purple soft sweater, hair in his eyes, looking up at him from the floor, and there's this itch that he feels at this moment, to reach out and touch Doyoung's cheek, and Yuta does that. He puts a hand on Doyoung's cheek and Doyoung leans into his touch, and they're quiet, and Yuta knows that he's soft with Doyoung. He has always been soft for Doyoung, maybe it's because of the panic attacks he's seen Doyoung sit through, or maybe it's just Doyoung. </p><p>"Don't ever call yourself pathetic, Hyung."</p><p>And Yuta snorts, a little bitterly, a little surprised at Doyoung's conviction and a little to make the situation seem lighter than it actually is, and says, "You think falling for a straight dude isn't pathetic?"</p><p>And Yuta still has Doyoung's cheek pressed against his hand and the latter says, "It's a little sad, yes, but it doesn't make you pathetic. Also, you fell for Sicheng, and he isn't actually someone who carries around a pussy signboard wherever he goes."</p><p>Yuta chokes out a laugh, and says, "Yeah, and his favorite kpop song is Gee. Not the epitome of heterosexuality, is it?"</p><p>"Hey, Yuta hyung, what if he stanned them because he likes staring at Taeyeon's tits?"</p><p>"Doyoung!"</p><p>"What? It's a valid question. He's a het, after all."</p><p>And Doyoung's eyes are sparkling with mirth, and Yuta is laughing and Doyoung is laughing, and Yuta still has his hand pressed against Doyoung's cheek, and Doyoung is still leaning into his touch.</p><p>"You're something, Doyoungie."</p><p>"Sad, depressed, gay, always right?"</p><p>And Yuta is laughing again, and Doyoung says, "Seriously, Yuta hyung, you'll be okay. You're a bad bitch. You'll get through this."</p><p>"So I'm a bad bitch now?"</p><p>"You're wearing a  leather jacket right now."</p><p>"Hey, it's cold! You're wearing your sweater now."</p><p>"You're wearing a leather jacket, you have piercings, and you got your heart broken and you still look hot. You're definitely a bad bitch, Hyung."</p><p>And Yuta is laughing softly and Doyoung takes his hand, the one which was resting on his cheek, and kisses the top of it and says, "So, Sir Bad Bitch, should we dance to the songs from Stranger in the Alps?"</p><p>And Yuta swears he's not blushing, he is just smiling a little too hard, and he takes Doyoung's outstretched hand, and Doyoung leads him to the record player and as the vinyl starts spinning, Doyoung whispers, "This one's my favorite, it's called Smoke Signals."</p><p>And they're standing in the centre of Doyoung's dorm room, and they start slow dancing to Phoebe Bridgers' soft, knife like voice, one of each of their hands resting on each other's waist, and the other clasped together. Yuta thinks it's almost like they're a domestic, soft couple, dancing in the living room after the kids have fallen asleep. He doesn't mind it, Doyoung's his best friend, this is fine, fine, fine.</p><p>
  <i> I went with you up to, the place you grew up in,<br/>
We spent a week in the cold </i>
</p><p>And Yuta says, "Remember when you used to take me to your house during the holidays, and we sat in your room and I used to try playing your brother's guitar?"</p><p>Doyoung smiles, and they're waltzing through the room in almost balldance fashion, hands clasped into one bundle of fingers and light moisture, "I loved having you over, Hyung."</p><p>
  <i> Sleeping in my bed again, And getting in my head and then, walk around the reservoir </i>
</p><p>"The song is sad," Yuta says, and Doyoung holds their hands up and Yuta does a tiny twirl, giggling a little.</p><p>"We're celebrating your heartbreak. Or well, first attempt at moving on from a Chinese hetboy. And I'm always sad. It fits the mood, Sir Bad Bitch."</p><p>"True."</p><p>
  <i>  You, you must have been looking for me,<br/>
Sending smoke signals, pelicans circling </i>
</p><p>Doyoung holds Yuta's waist, and lifts him up a little, and his face is a little strained, probably from the weight, but he is grinning, and Yuta finds himself grinning as well, and Doyoung asks, "Remember when you lost me in the carnival I took you to when we went home?"</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"And you ran around saying you were looking for  a Kim Doyoung and no one could help you."</p><p>"Hey, what was I supposed to do? I didn't even have a phone with me back then."</p><p>"Thank god I was looking for you."</p><p>"Yeah, thank god you were looking for me."</p><p>
  <i> One of your eyes is always half shut,<br/>
something happened when you were a kid,<br/>
I didn't know you then and I'll never understand<br/>
why it feels like I did. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>"You remember how my mother is scared of escalators?"</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>Doyoung spins Yuta around one more time, as he says, "She wasn't actually scared of them in the beginning. When I was 12, I tumbled down an escalator and got myself a pair of bruised ribs."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Yeah, it was ... something. It did a number on mom. I had this nasty scar on my knee too, it's almost gone now, but yeah, she never got over it."</p><p>Doyoung says nothing, and pulls Yuta closer, a little bit, and it's almost like a hug, their chests pressed together, and Yuta likes it. He likes it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <i> And you, you must have been looking for me,<br/>
Sending smoke signals, pelicans circling. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>Yuta places his head on Doyoung's shoulder, and they're still slow dancing, and he mumbles, "This song does a weird thing to my heart. It's so sad and I should be crying and I don't feel like crying would be the right response."</p><p>Doyoung's voice comes from above his head, "It's my favorite off this album. Reminds me of things that happened and didn't happen."</p><p>"It's not a love song."</p><p>"No. More of a goodbye song. Nostalgic, kinda. Phoebe's entire album is a sort of a goodbye to her asshole ex and the trauma that had ensued."</p><p>"Heartbreaks suck."</p><p>"Uh-huh."</p><p>"Good thing I was never in love with Sicheng, then."</p><p>Doyoung's chin is resting on his head, "You weren't?"</p><p>"Nah, close to it, though. Too close, but not completely. Would have hurt worse if I was. I ... wanted him? But I didn't need him yet."</p><p>They're still dancing, and Yuta thinks they've veered into middle aged romantic couple territory now, and it's funny, they aren't even a couple. And he should be scared, of this proximity, and be weirded out, they're best friends dancing like a white heterosexual couple, but he doesn't mind, he doesn't mind at all.</p><p>
  <i> I wanna live at the Holiday Inn, where<br/>
somebody else makes the bed,<br/>
We'll watch TV till the lights on the street<br/>
Put all the stars to death. </i>
</p><p>"Why did you like Sicheng?", Doyoung's chin is still buried in his hair, and Yuta wants to whip his head up, but he doesn't.</p><p>"That's, a weird question."</p><p>"I'm asking what made you so attracted to him?"</p><p>"Well, he's tall for one."</p><p>"Everyone's taller than you, hyung. Even I am. And if you were going for tall, you could have gone for Johnny hyung."</p><p>"I have seen Johnny's stash of Playboy magazines."</p><p>"Tall is a shitty boyfriend qualification."</p><p>"Oof. Okay, he is cute? He's the softest squish ever, like, have you seen him? Adorable. The cutest."</p><p>"Hmm, and?"</p><p>"What is this, an interrogation?"</p><p>"Hyung, please."</p><p>"Okay, okay. Umm, I just loved doting upon him? caring for him? He was like a helpless little kid since he was a trainee, and I liked helping him around. And he used to act like he was so frustrated when I used to hug him and yet he would not say no, and, and–I don't know–is that enough reason?"</p><p>"Didn't it get tiring?"</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Doting on him? Caring for him? And not exactly having it reciprocated?"</p><p>"Well...Yeah, it sorta did. Get tiring, but you know how you like someone so much you ignore the fact that you could be a pushover in a way? Something like that? But it did get tiring, yeah. Sometimes all of it seemed so pointless, and looking back now, it kinda is. It would be brilliant if it was all worth it, but I guess, it isn't. It isn't wasted affection, but it sure is wasted time."</p><p>
  <i> And you, you must have been looking for me,<br/>
Sending smoke signals, pelicans circling </i>
</p><p>"You're so precious, Hyung."</p><p>And Yuta draws away his head from under Doyoung's chin and look up at him.</p><p>"You're so damn precious, and you deserve all of that, the affection being reciprocated, the doting, the caring, the affection, you deserve all of that. You deserve so much more."</p><p>"And who's gonna give that to me?"</p><p>"I can."</p><p>And there's a hammer in Yuta's heart, and Doyoung's looking down at him and he doesn't look like he's joking, and they've stopped dancing, they're standing in the middle of the room, staring at each other.</p><p>Their faces are so close, so close to each other, and Yuta realises Doyoung's hands are cupping his face and he doesn't mind, he doesn't mind at all. And Doyoung's staring at his lips, and almost leaning down, and Yuta can't help but stare at Doyoung's lips too, and he doesn't know who bridges the gap, but they're kissing now, softly, Doyoung's lips pleading against his, and his hands are on the other's nape and they're shuffling towards his bed, and it's Doyoung, Doyoung, Doyoung, and he should be pushing the other off, but he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to, he doesn't mind this at all. He doesn't mind this at all.</p><p>And they're kissing and everything's soft and purple wool and black leather and a boy and another boy and they're kissing and it doesn't feel bad at all, it feels the closest thing to the right thing. It feels good. It feels great.</p><p>And then Yuta sees Taeyong standing at the door, eyes wide and then the latter mouths a congratulations and walks off, and <i> oh, oh, Taeyong. What has Yuta done? What has he done? Oh god, what has he done? </i></p><p>But they're kissing and he doesn't mind at all, he doesn't mind at all, and something in his brain ticks, a clock, a flick of a match, a skipped beat, or maybe he's just imagining things, but Yuta pulls Doyoung closer, and kisses him with more conviction, this time, hands all over the place, and Doyoung's lips are against his and his hands are unzipping his jacket and he thinks, <i> fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. </i></p><p>And now they're kissing, and it's the closest thing to the best thing in the world. He doesn't mind this, he doesn't mind this at all.</p><p>
  <i> I buried a hatchet, it's coming up lavender,<br/>
The future's unwritten, the past is a corridor,<br/>
I'm at the exit, looking back through the hall,<br/>
You are anonymous, I am a concrete wall. </i>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Shadowboxing with giants, that grew from our feet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tw for fistfights, glorifying violence.</p><p>also, too many f-bombs.</p><p>title from Shadowboxing by Julien Baker.</p><p>
  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1y3kGiSU3YP9yQzO9ZyWxP?si=1C5seIc-SqO7rmmzEMXkYQ">chapter-wise playlist </a>
</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+1</p><p>Taeyong has never been particularly violent, in all his years of his miserable existence. It had always been Doyoung, the one with a penchant for fistfights and not too serious bloodshed. It had been surprising, at first, because Doyoung was scrawny, he looked like he could be snapped into two without too much effort, but boy, did he know how to take a punch, and throw back twenty. </p><p>Taeyong remembers that one time at a club, the three of them had been hanging out and sipping on cheap watery drinks early on in their less than sane careers, and a guy had been harassing Yuta for a while. They'd been surprised, Yuta included, because Yuta has always been intimidating as fuck, even if he stood at 5'9 and wasn't a bulging piece of pure muscle mass. They'd recognised the dude, they'd heard of him say questionable shit through the grapevine, and now there he was, heckling Yuta as the latter leaned against the bar counter, eyeing him with a slightly lazy gaze. And then Doyoung had side eyed Yuta, and the latter had given a small nod. Taeyong, for the life of him could never fathom what sort of telepathic shit they were on, but he had seen Doyoung give a small smirk, and then he'd seen one of his best friends  drag a guy who looked almost two times stronger than him into a corner, and gift the perv a broken nose which must have cost his company a good sum getting fixed so soon, considering they had their comeback in a fortnight. </p><p>Doyoung had come back with barely bruised knuckles and a tight but proud smile, and Yuta had grinned back, Cheshire like, and there had been this weird spark, this thing, and Taeyong had felt like he was intruding on a private moment, but he'd quickly taken hold of that thought and shoved it away into a darker recess of his memory because Yuta had been so out and about with Sicheng, and Doyoung, well, Doyoung would never have the courage to tell Yuta how he felt, nevermind the bloody bravado he had shown at that moment.</p><p>It's crazy, because Doyoung had always looked fragile, had always looked like he was made of glass, but then he would go out of his way and beat the shit out of people who dared to even look at Yuta or Taeyong the wrong way, even if the other two were perfectly fit to take care of themselves.</p><p>He'd never explained how he had learned to fight, or why he felt the burning compulsion to pummel people into the ground. </p><p>"You know you don't have to beat people up for us, right, Doyoung?", Taeyong remembers asking, one of those times where the former was lounging in his room.</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"You know we can throw a few punches if the situation asks for it, then?"</p><p>"I know you two are perfectly competent, Yong."</p><p>"Then why do you keep doing it? You're building up quite a reputation for yourself, Doyoungie, and it isn't quite a non violent one. Who do you think you are, fucking John Cena?"</p><p>"John Cena is invisible, how do you even manage to build a reputation and then not be seen altogether?"</p><p>"Stop bullshitting me."</p><p>Doyoung had sighed, and then looked away, and said in a voice that sounded like it was searching for the mirth that was supposed to be there, but had been misplaced at the very last second, "It's a coping mechanism, Yongie. Let me live the street fighter life I've always dreamt of."</p><p>"That is one of the most idiotic things you've said, and believe me, you say idiotic things every single second of the day. This isn't the Vin Diesel movie you think it to be."</p><p>"Vin Diesel? That's all you got?", Doyoung had said in between cackles.</p><p>"Oh, so you want to be the other bald mammoth of American cinema? Doyoung the Rock Johnson?"</p><p>"Lame."</p><p>"Just, stop fighting so much–"</p><p>"But it's fun, and a good way to let your steam off. And it's not like I'm beating up random people, it's people who are harassing you and Yuta hyung."</p><p>"Doyoung–"</p><p>"No, no you just don't get it–"</p><p>"Doyoung, listen to me, enrol in boxing classes or MMA or something. Take out your anger that way and not on actual people. And it's not just for your sake, it's for the other guys too. One day you'll beat up the wrong person and the press would have a field day."</p><p>"I'll try," Doyoung had said, and never raised his fist for Taeyong after that.</p><p>And today, as he hears the sound of the slap bounce off the walls of Doyoung's room, Taeyong finally understands what he'd meant. There's this tiny warmth blossoming in his chest that should be borderline monstrous, but it doesn't feel like it, not remotely. It feels like victory, in it's carnal, primitive sense, and there's this strange pleasure in the slight burn on his palm that he couldn't ever have fathomed without having slapped Yuta today. He's never hit anyone before. Not even as a kid in kindergarten. And now, after he has slapped his once ride or die best friend, the guy who fucked the now dead love of his life, the guy he'd cried in the arms of long long ago, a time so faraway that it borders on extinction, the man who doesn't give a fuck about Doyoung, he feels a sliver of joy cutting through his belly, a flicker of violent light through the banal darkness living inside his ribs. </p><p>"What the–", he hears Yuta say, and he can sense the bewilderment in his voice that shouldn't even be there in the first place. He deserves this slap, he deserves to be beaten the shit out of, he deserves fists and kicks and he doesn't even deserve to touch a speck of dust in Doyoung's room. </p><p>And in that brief moment, he feels sharp, red, pulsating rage, and so this time he knees Yuta, who's still sitting on Doyoung's bed, wearing confusion on his face like shitty too glittery faux diamond ornaments, the kind that you don't have to look at twice to know that it's fake, right in the stomach.</p><p>All he sees is a bright shade of red in startling intensity now, and he's about to throw another, or ten more punches, when he feels Yuta's grip on his wrist, and he sees the other stand up and now they're forehead to forehead, and all Taeyong wants is to decimate the degenerate's face into an unrecognisable mass of flesh and pulpy bone.</p><p>"What the fuck are you trying to do, Taeyong?", and Yuta's voice is drenched in shock and anger, and oh, does Taeyong want to uproot that from his voice and leave the other with an empty throat incapable of speaking.</p><p>"Have you absolutely lost it? What's with this sudden coming here and trying to beat me up?", and yes, Taeyong's lost it, because his best friend is dead, the love of his life is dead, and how dare Yuta–how dare he even have the audacity to ask if he's lost it when he was kissing another guy a few minutes ago, a few days after Doyoung fucking killed himself? Yes, he's lost it, and he feels nothing but absolute seething, burning, brutal rage.</p><p>"No, I get it, I get how much Doyoung means–Doyoung meant to you, but what's your reasoning behind coming here and trying to fistfight me?", and Taeyong wants to suction pipe that genuine sounding bewilderment, he feels disgust, sheer disgust, because the motherfucker is pretending like he doesn't understand what he's done wrong, like he doesn't fathom what he's doing wrong, or–or– Had Doyoung meant so little to him that he wants to fuck around with someone else, a bandmate no less, the same guy Doyoung had been so jealous over, in so little time?</p><p>"I get that you hate me, I get that Yong, but this–this is you going ballistic. Answer me–no, give me an explanation–why the fuck are you trying to get into a fight with me?", and Taeyong feels Yuta's grip on his wrist get tighter and tighter and he knows in a few minutes, he would have burning red fingerprints on his hand, but he doesn't care. He doesn't fucking care.</p><p>And finally, when Yuta yells, "Answer me. Don't fucking be quiet," he feels something snap, and he knows his voice is dripping with venom and anger and sadness and god fucking knows what, maybe it sounds banal as fuck and he sounds numb, but he looks Yuta in the eye and says, "You don't deserve to be here."</p><p>Yuta balks for a second, and Taeyong wrenches his wrist out of Yuta's grip and whispers, and it's a tad bit dramatic, but it adds to the conviction he's meant to have to drive his point home, "You don't fucking deserve to be here."</p><p>"Here? What do you mean–oh, you mean Doyoung's room?"</p><p>"Don't fucking act stupid, Yuta, you know exactly what I mean."</p><p>"But I don't, I don't get what you mean. I absolutely have no idea what you mean, " and there it is again, the visible faux confusion Taeyong wants to claw out of the other's face.</p><p>"You–you don't deserve to be here. Here. Doyoung's room. You don't even deserve to breathe the air in his room. You–fucking bastard, you don't deserve to even be anywhere close to his memories. You fucking–you fucking <i>desecrate</i> this place. You, you filthy piece of shit. Get the fuck out of here–" and Taeyong knows his voice sounds watery and angry and all he's seeing is violent colors and in the back of his head, he's sure he's planning murder. Or a difficult-to-recover-from injury. </p><p>"So now you get to decide who chooses to mourn for Doyoung, huh? You get to decide? You'll tell everyone – you'll dictate who deserves to grieve for Doyoung. You? Well newsflash, Yong, you're not our leader when it comes to our <i>lives</i>. Whoever convinced you that you are in control off-cam, boy, did they lie to you", and Yuta draws a breath, and says in a voice that's almost borderline sympathetic, like he's forcing himself to be understanding, "Seriously, are you okay? Why are you throwing this crap at me?"</p><p>And that sympathy claws at Taeyong's stomach and he wants to puke on Yuta's face, he feels unadulterated disgust, and he can't believe the innocence that the latter is trying to pull off while looking him right in the eye.</p><p>"Get out. Get the fuck out of here."</p><p>"No."</p><p>Taeyong inches a little closer to Yuta, and he can see the sudden spark of fear, he can see it, and he feels slightly victorious, he won't deny it.</p><p>"I said, get out."</p><p>"And I said no. I won't get out of here. Seriously, Taeyong, leave that leader bullshit out of the door when you come to talk to me. I'm not your fucking subordinate. I don't give a single fuck if the others obey you and see you as the intelligent, caring, leader, I don't give a shit about that. Don't fucking try to even intimidate me, I'm not hitting you back because I am in my senses right now. Because you know, I can beat you into pulp and believe me, I'm being a decent fucking human right now."</p><p>"You're being a decent fucking human? You? Don't even try to fool yourself into thinking that, Yuta, " and he's chuckling and he can feel the bitterness in his mouth, before he continues, "Get the fuck out of here."</p><p>"And if I don't? What the fuck are you going to do if I don't, Taeyong? Hit me? Because I'll hit back, and it will hurt way more than you expect," and Yuta's gripping his collar now, his sour fucking breath is fanning on Taeyong's face.</p><p>"All you've ever done is hurt the people around you, Yuta, you think you hitting back will catch me off guard?" and he feels Yuta's grip loosening on his collar.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"You can't fool me, Yuta," and Taeyong fishes out his collar from the former's fist, "You can fool yourself into thinking you're not a shit person, but man, you can't fool me. Or the others. You fooled Doyoung though, you fooled Doyoung, and you did a good job out of it. You fooled him so well that he didn't even realise he was a stepping stone to someone else. You fooled my boy every single time he asked you if he meant less than Sicheng,  into thinking it was all in his head, didn't you? And now he's gone, and the string has broken, and you got what you wanted all along. You finally have Sicheng, don't you?", and Taeyong knows he sounds hysterical now, his eyes are burning and his chest is on fire and he wants to sit down on the floor and cry and he wants to beg Yuta to go back in time to undo everything he has done, and he wants to kill Yuta, if that would bring Doyoung back, "So now tell me, Yuta, tell me why you did this to Doyoung. You could have been a little less selfish, couldn't you? You could have not stepped all over Doyoung just to reach Sicheng? And if this was your intention all along, you could have waited–you could have waited a little bit, couldn't you? Just, out of respect, if not love? To kiss Sicheng? To kiss him and then come here and put on a show? God, Yuta, you're fooling everyone, aren't you? But you could have spared Doyoung, you could have left him out of this, couldn't you?", his eyes are stinging and he feels his heart clench, he feels his chest widen, like it's waiting for anything, anything but sadness and anger and numbness to rush in, and he feels so fucking weak.</p><p>He watches Yuta sink to the floor, and the latter has his back turned towards him now, it's bent in a weird shape, like he's hunched over, but also like someone has broken his spine, and he deserves that, he deserves that, and worse. Doyoung is gone, and Yuta deserves worse. </p><p>"You have no business –", and Yuta's voice is faltering, it sounds like it's underwater, it sounds watery, "You have no business telling me how to cope."</p><p>"Oh, is that what you're calling it now? Is this what you're calling Sicheng now? Your coping mechanism?," and he has walked over to where Yuta is sitting, and he knows he's being cruel, but he doesn't care, he doesn't care, he doesn't care, "Are you going to kill him now? Are you going to kill him too, now, Yuta?"</p><p>And Yuta has got his head down, and he whispers, "I didn't kill Doyoung."</p><p>"Didn't you, Yuta?"</p><p>And Yuta looks up at him, finally looks up at Taeyong and his eyes are red, and there are tears streaming down his face, and he looks like a broken, broken, man, and he says, "I loved him."</p><p>And Taeyong feels it like a snowstorm, like cold melting ice thrown over him, like all the anger in his body is freezing into a question, into a "now what", and he feels his blood go cold, and Yuta's pleading from the floor, "I loved him. I love him. Believe me. I didn't kill him. I loved him. I love him, so much, I love him, I love Doyoung. I didn't kill him. Believe me. Believe me. Please believe me. Please. I beg you. Please. I loved him. I love him."</p><p>He's holding on to Taeyong's feet now, almost like he's begging for mercy, and Taeyong doesn't know how to feel anymore. He's begging for forgiveness, he's telling the truth, and now Taeyong is seeing his best friend on the floor, holding onto his feet, and now he can't feel the cruelty anymore, all he can see is the time that won't ever come back, Yuta tucking him to bed, Yuta teaching him Japanese phrases, Yuta gushing about girl groups, Yuta waking him up from nightmares, Yuta, his best friend, Yuta, one third of the Three Horsemen of the Homosexual Apocalypse, Yuta, who's on the floor, repeating like a prayer, repeating like a plea, repeating himself like a broken record, "I loved him, Yong. I love him. I can't even imagine living without him. I loved him, Yong, I still love him, believe me. I didn't kill him. I didn't kill him. It wasn't me. It–I loved him, I loved him , I fucking love him. Believe me."</p><p>And Taeyong now puts his hand on Yuta's head, and he can feel his heart wring itself repeatedly, he feels the tears on his own face, he feels the lump in his throat growing bigger and bigger and he whispers, <i> "But did he know that, Yuyu?"</i></p><p>And Yuta closes his eyes, and he tightens his hold around Taeyong's feet, and Taeyong lets out the sob that had been climbing up his throat. And he finally sinks to the floor and now they're holding onto each other for dear life, and Yuta's got his head buried into Taeyong's neck and he's whispering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry", and Taeyong tells him that it's not his fault, but he knows Yuta will never believe him again. Yuta will never believe that, again. Yuta presses his nose into Taeyong's shoulder and keeps whispering, "I'm sorry", it's not even an apology now, it's just pure grief.</p><p>And Taeyong, tells Yuta that it's not his fault, but he can never make the other believe that.</p><p>Now Yuta will forever believe he's a killer, and Doyoung is dead, and oh, what has Taeyong done?</p><p>What has he done?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>"I'll update soon", I said.</p><p>"Stay tuned," I said.</p><p>Well, in my defence, I have been taking my exams for a month (horrifying, I know), and I knew how emotionally exhausting this chapter would be, to you and me, both of us. The exams aren't over yet, but this traumatising chapter is.</p><p>So, do fistfights feel as exhilarating as Taeyong feels it to be here? Not if your enemy hits back, then it sucks real bad. Also you shouldn't be enjoying fistfights, that just means you've got unresolved issues, like both Taeyong and I do. </p><p>Also, speaking from personal experience, if you're beating up a man that is harassing you, punch him in the nose and knee him in the balls, one after the other. It needs good coordination, but if you manage to pull it off, gives you enough of a window to either a) scream, b) run away. That's your fistfight lesson of the day, but please don't be violent. Don't be like Taeyong, kids. He needs help, and so do I. </p><p>I promise the next update would not be so delayed, but I actually lost tangent of what was supposed to happen here and created an entirely different plotline. So yeah, that's a problem. </p><p>Leaving me a comment equals giving me a hug, and god knows I need hugs.</p><p>Anyway, till my next update.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. to see you alive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hello hey hello hello.</p><p>I am back, again, and this time it's a significantly softer chapter. Its a little long, and I have added two more songs : Lovesick,  and To See You Alive on the playlist because the chapter can be split up into two parts. And both of the songs are integral for the mood, so I suggest you do listen to it. At least start from Lovesick, for this chapter. Most of what I write is based on what I listen to and so I know I sound a little pissy, but believe me, the songs add a little bit of color to the otherwise measly excuse of a story this is.</p><p>  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1y3kGiSU3YP9yQzO9ZyWxP?si=1C5seIc-SqO7rmmzEMXkYQ">chapter-wise playlist </a></p><p>On to the chapter, then.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>-2</p><p>Yuta sees everything in a jumbled up movie marathon stretching into infinite time and space, from then onwards. </p><p>He sees it like it's a bubblegum pink sweet teen romance with a Fall Out Boy soundtrack produced  by A24, missed out on by the public and praised generously by the critics when Doyoung, in between kisses and sighing into them, says, "I'm going to take you somewhere today, and you're going to let me dress you the way I want to," and Yuta finds himself agreeing, because his head is in the clouds because the other is seated on his lap with his shirt sliding off his shoulder, baring his collarbone, and he desperately wants to kiss it, because he can feel his dick twitch in his pants, because he'd let Doyoung talk him into anything he wants to, although he'd never admit it to the other, or maybe he just might.</p><p>And he feels that cotton candy bubble wrap surrounding him when Doyoung pulls out all his black clothes out from his wardrobe in a pile, and he'd have yelled a little if it were someone else, but it's Doyoung, and he doesn't know where this softness had been till a few days ago, or it had been there all along under his skin, and he'd been unaware, but he lets Doyoung put him in a black washed down graphic tee and a leather jacket and black ripped jeans, "I have a thing for you in black," he says, "You have a thing for me," Yuta shoots back as they dissolve into giggles that wouldn't really be expected from two grown men. Doyoung sits on his lap with an eyeliner pen in his hand, tongue sticking out from the corner of his mouth, perfectly focused, drawing precise lines around his eyes, and Yuta is good at eyeliner, he's the one who taught the other two how to line their eyes, but Doyoung holds his face in a way no one's ever really held it before, and for once in his life, he doesn't want to push off someone to the floor, and for the first time in a half of forever, he wants to hold someone closer, and he knows he's thinking too deep about something as flimsy as eyeliner, but Doyoung's hands on his face, doing his makeup swiftly, covering his eyes in darker eyeshadow and lips in some strawberry scented lip balm he doesn't know the name of, makes him feel things like permanence and forever and it's a tiny bit terrifying that it isn't as frightening as he thought it would be. And when Doyoung lands a kiss on his lips, a soft one, no tongue, just something soft enough, Yuta wonders if the heartbreak was real, because this doesn't feel like healing, this feels like something more, something larger, much much larger.</p><p>The cotton candy expands around him as he watches in awe when Doyoung puts on a pink plaid skirt that barely covers his thighs, and fishnet stockings that make Yuta's feel like he's seeing him for the first time (there's also a semi boner involved, but it's not like he'll acknowledge how Doyoung in a skirt is all it takes for him to be this aroused). He watches, all wide eyed, as Doyoung lines his eyes with rhinestones and there's pink amd purple around his eyes, and Yuta wants to stare all day long. He watches, as Doyoung puts on a pink purple tee and he looks soft and he looks like the edge of a knife, and Yuta wants to hold him and Yuta is a little scared of him. And when he smudges his lipstick and looks at Yuta with hooded eyes and mussed hair and earrings and soft rouge, Yuta wants to ruin him, Yuta wants to hold him to his chest and never, ever, ever let go. </p><p>"Do you like it?," he asks.</p><p>"You–you look amazing. Beautiful. God–," and Doyoung is embarrassed and Yuta sees, him look down and bite his lip and god, isn't that adorable, "I thought dressing up like total opposites of each other would be, would be– nice."</p><p>"It <i>is</i> nice. I have never seen you wear this stuff before."</p><p>"Well, you never really paid attention to me," and just when Yuta's heart is about to clench, Doyoung looks at him and says, "Put your hair in a ponytail. Makes you look sexy. Or wait, let me do it," and<br/>
he doesn't get to dwell.</p><p>It's a pink umbrella, it's a baby blanket.</p><p>And then Doyoung pulls him to a penthouse downtown for a house-party, where Yuta spots a lot of familiar faces and a few unfamiliar ones, they're all from the entertainment industry, and when he looks at Doyoung for explanation, the latter says, "It's Chanyeol and Sehun hyung's party, Taeyongie hyung and I go to their club once in a while, so we get invites."</p><p>There's a weird green stemming into the pink clouds around his head, and he bites back the bite in his voice, tries to make his words sound light-hearted, "So why didn't you bring him?"</p><p>Doyoung points at a few couples around them, and says, "What are they doing?"</p><p>"...Making out?"</p><p>"I don't exactly think I swap spit with Taeyongie, do I?"</p><p>And now they're both giggling, and the green is curling into itself and shrinking into nothing, and Doyoung is sparkling under the lights, he's got pink body glitter all over his skin, and Yuta wonders if he even has the strength to look away. </p><p>They're dancing, crazy, uncoordinated, now, the music is happy, and Doyoung, tells him over the noise that Sehun and Chanyeol are something like the ringlords of the industry's homosexual underworld, and Yuta throws his head back and laughs like it's forever.</p><p>He knows they look like those couples from the internet, with him looking like he has walked out of an energy drink commercial featuring the local badboy, and Doyoung managing to look like he is some adult live action barbie movie character, and they're singing over the music, so close to each other, and it's straight out of a movie, bubblegum pink sweet as fuck unrealistic teen romance which they don't even fit in, but it's beautiful.</p><p>And there's a song playing, one that he's never heard before, but Doyoung seems to know every word to, and he's low-key serenading him that leaves Yuta blushing, and somewhere, in the back of his head, he wishes for a film camera, he wishes that someone was recording this right now– with him, standing awkwardly in his leather jacket and e-boy makeup,  like he's never been to a party before and Doyoung circling him and mouthing the words to this song he's never heard before but he's sure is written by some college student, in all his twinky, skirt wearing, pink barbie doll like glory–he wishes that someone were filming this, he wants to condense this moment into something tangible, something that he can reach out and touch, and hold. This moment, with Doyoung, in a penthouse, at a house-party, organised by two of the biggest names in the industry, who are dressed like some supercouple in matching costly black suits, holding hands and looking on as all the homos of the expensive hell that they come from kiss, like proud dads. It would make a good shot, a little cliché, but he doesn't mind it at all. He is happy now, Doyoung is happy, now. He's mouthing the words to the song like it's an attainable slice of forever.</p><p><i>Maybe we couldn't save it this time<br/>
As badly as I want to</i>(He places a finger on Yuta's chest)<i><br/>
As badly as I want you </i>(and now he walks his fingers upto his lips, looking at him with something akin to mischief in his eyes, god who says mischief in one's eyes unless they're a b-grade novelist)<br/>
<i>Isn't it amazing?<br/>
That people connect for a minute or two<br/>
One more minute with you</i></p><p>Doyoung's looking at him like he's a 1960s Hollywood movie actress, all exaggerated pouting and fluttering eyelashes, and he's got beautiful eyes, lined with rhinestones and glitter and a distinctly cheesy, romantic part of his brain supplies that maybe that is why Doyoung sees something in him, sees something in him to not make him his second choice, sees something in him through his panicky flailing attempts to run away from the present into the future, sees him.</p><p>And then Doyoung pulls him by the neck with the feather boa towards him, and he sees him not mouth the words, and now he's paying attention ot the lyrics and he can hear the words –</p><p>
  <i><br/>
Lovesick<br/>
Love you till my heart stops<br/>
Love you till I'm carsick<br/>
Love you till you're starsick<br/>
</i>
</p><p>And Doyoung isn't mouthing the words and Yuta knows why he isn't. Too fast, too heavy, or maybe something else a party isn't the right place to dwell on. Yuta doesn't want to think about it because Doyoung's looking at him with hooded eyes and Yuta can feel his breath fanning on his cheeks and it's like a cinematic pause with time stilling around them and it would get awkward but it doesn't because Yuta kisses Doyoung and they're smiling, they're smiling, they're smiling. Yuta hasn't smiled into kisses much, but it's teeth against tongue and there's no violence, just a soft pink haze that he wants to grab on to and never ever let go. He's happy, and Doyoung's happy, and he wants this to last forever. He wants the happiness to last forever. He wants it to seep into their lives and take away the weight of all the bad things resting on their shoulders, almost breaking their necks.</p><p>But of course it doesn't.</p><p>Yuta sees everything in a jumbled up movie marathon stretching into infinite time and space, from then onwards. </p><p>He sees it like a non linear-inconclusive-finding familiarity in newly experienced pain-Wong Kar Wai film. </p><p>He wakes up one morning and Doyoung's got his hands around his chest. And he feels like he's choking. He feels like Doyoung's hands are ropes and they're cutting through his chest and reaching for his lungs. And it's too fucking much. He feels his body get heavier and heavier and he hates it. It feels like permanence, a roadwork sign blocking an escape mission. He loathes it. He has never wanted this, he has never ever ever wanted this.</p><p>And yet, he's here, and all of it is real and he is here and he doesn't want to be here. Doyoung shuffles in his sleep and moves closer to him, and he wants is to push Doyoung off the bed and all he wants is to jump out the bed and run out of the room till he can't even remember his own name. Till he has figured out a new name.</p><p>And so he carefully slips out from Doyoung's embrace and avoids him the whole day. When Sicheng texts him if he's up for a rock concert, he says yes.</p><p>It goes something like this. He goes to the concert. He likes the music. They cheer as the guitarist smashes a guitar, like an aspiring Jimi Hendrix . Sicheng holds his hand, for some reason. And he feels happy. And then he feels terrible for feeling happy. He spends the rest of the concert thinking about Doyoung's hands and Doyoung's face and how he had run away without any explanation besides a text saying he'd be going to the concert. He feels nausea in his bones, and then he somehow manages to hold it in. He pukes outside the dorm once Sicheng leaves. He goes up and pounds Doyoung into the mattress and Doyoung sobs a little and he doesn't dare ask if it's the sex or if Yuta really made him cry. He doesn't think he can handle it, the answer. So he doesn't ask. Doyoung leaves his room after they're done and he stops sleeping beside him until about a week later, Yuta holds his hand when he's about to leave and then they act like nothing happened. Or maybe he acts like nothing happened. Maybe Doyoung just plays along. He doesn't know, or maybe he does, but he isn't ready to risk his sanity for it. He would rather not know, than let the knowledge gnaw at him.</p><p>Yuta sees everything in a jumbled up movie marathon stretching into infinite time and space, from then onwards.</p><p>He sees it like a home movie playing on his own DVD player. Ordinary joys and ordinary grief. Fighting over simple things. Little fires and small burns and sufficient warmth. </p><p>It's funny how Doyoung worms his way into his life and it's so sudden and yet, there are no jumpscares. Even if there are, he doesn't really feel it. Doyoung fits. Like all of this was meant to happen, or as if Doyoung took a crash course in dealing with Nakamoto Yuta. Yuta says it's the fact that they've been best friends for so long. Doyoung says that it's something else. When he asks what it is, he looks away with a smile and says "Figure it out." </p><p>There's the holding hands in the backseat of their tour van, stealthily, so that no one sees, because they're always too tired for explanations. There's the kissing in corners hiding from your friends and laughing about it once they're out of sight. There's the inside jokes and the side eyes. It's stupid, it's not what Yuta had thought he was in for, it's something he wouldn't for the life of him give away.</p><p>Yuta kisses the gash on Doyoung's belly one day. He doesn't ask for explanations. Doyoung lets him do it and runs his hands through Yuta's hair. Then Yuta pulls him into a hug and they stay like that for what seems like a fairly long time, a fairly good time. </p><p>When Yuta falls sick and the doctor asks him to not leave his bed, the others in all their post practice sweaty glory come and try to lighten him up, and of course he laughs, they mean a lot to him, they do, and he laughs, but when they're all gone and Doyoung is the only sticking around, sitting at the head of his bed, he puts his head in the younger's lap and cries. It's the frustration in not being able to practice, it's the frustration bottled up for years of not getting enough lines to sing despite learning an entire different language altogether, it's the frustration he has bundled up and put in a backpack and carried around for years aimed at everything that's made his insides hurt like a bitch, and he cries until he falls asleep. </p><p>They fight over chocolate and Yuta's wandering hands on Mark's ass and dumb stupid shit. Yuta listens to Doyoung yell about how his brain is getting too used to the meds that they're not even properly working, and that one time at therapy which made him decide on never going back.</p><p>And when Doyoung buys him earrings and listens to him rant about Spiderman and gives him his soft sweaters and listens to Radwimps and L'Arc En Ciel so that he can sing along with Yuta, he knows the feeling.</p><p>He feels it rush into his chest.</p><p>And when Doyoung pulls him in a corner and kisses the crown of his head before they're about to go on stage, he knows it, he knows it, he knows it.</p><p>He knows the feeling, he just needs a little time.</p><p>They'll have time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hi, I am back, way sooner than I thought I would be. I went on a small trip to a nearby seaside town. Lockdown has been lifted here, and we have permits on travelling and things are chill here where I live, and I followed all protective measures, so don't worry. But I wrote most of this in the hotel and on the beach and I cried to Hayley Williams' new album like the pathetic little sod that I am and  thought about how I will be leaving my own town soon if things work out the way I want them to, so I got pretty emotional with this.</p><p>I guess I wanted to give you all a perception of their relationship through Yuta's own eyes because Taeyong sees it as an onlooker and Taeyong is pretty biased. No one is a monster here, no one is cruel. I promise Yuta and Taeyong will not always be the current state they're in, that's the most I can say without spoiling the story. Also this fic will be a little long so you'll have to sit through slow development lol.</p><p>And you can see Yuta's problem with things becoming permanent. It's something I deal with on the daily, I hate feeling like things are stationary and I don't feel like a "friend" on most days. I want to be a different place at every single moment and every single time there's this one defining trait about me, I try to change it. Okay I am blabbering, but I am actually gonna project these problems on doyu. The disappearing couple, lmao.</p><p>Also, the song lyrics are from Maude Latour's Lovesick, and I have added it to the playlist, please listen !!</p><p>Thank you, I love you, and leaving me a comment is equal to giving  me a hug, so please (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧</p><p>Bye, see you soon !!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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